Despite an unfortunate anomaly nearly three months ago, Rocket Lab is ready to see its Electron rocket fly once again with a new mission slated for launch on Friday.
Source: Gizmodo – How to Watch Rocket Lab’s Next Launch as It Seeks to Recover From a Scary Setback
“We are Sex Bob-Omb! One, two, three, four!”
Source: Gizmodo – Rock Out With Scott Pilgrim Takes Off on Vinyl
Group chats can get chaotic, and that’s what makes group chats fun. But there are times when you wish you didn’t need to scroll up past 100 messages to find the important thing you’re looking for: the place and time you’re meeting for lunch, who’s bringing what for the potluck dinner, etc. That’s where the ability to pin a message to the top can be clutch. And if you’re a WhatsApp user, you can finally try it for yourself.
Thanks to the new feature, anyone in a group chat can pin a message so it sticks to the top of the chat. That means it’s up to anyone in the chat to decide which message warrants the honor. As it’s a slow rollout, it might take a couple of days for the feature to show up, so keep checking in if you don’t see it yet.
You can pin any message, even a poll, to the top of a chat.
Tap and hold on the message you want to pin to select it.
Tap Menu on the top to see your options.
Choose Pin, then choose how long you want the message to stay pinned to the top. Currently, you can choose between 24 hours, 7 days (the default), or 30 days. When the time is up, the message will be unpinned.
Tap and hold on the message you want to pin to select it.
Tap More from the context menu.
Choose Pin, and decide how long you want it to stay at the top— 24 hours, 7 days (the default), or 30 days. When the time is up, the message will be unpinned.
And, of course, you can tap on a pinned message to unpin it anytime.
This feature is a part of a deluge of new WhatsApp features in recent months—all things that really should have been part of the app for years. Alongside pinning, you can now edit your messages, send disappearing voice messages, and can send photos in their original quality.
Source: LifeHacker – You Can Now Pin Messages in WhatsApp Group Chats
Back in September AMD released FidelityFX Super Resolution 3 (FSR3) and at the time they noted the open-source code would be made available “soon”. As a nice Christmas present, the FSR3 source code is public as of today…
Source: Phoronix – AMD Publishes FSR 3 Source Code
Cruise is laying off 24 percent of its workforce, the company confirmed to Engadget. GM’s self-driving subsidiary says it will cut approximately 900 employees, as first reported by TechCrunch and CNBC. The news comes over 10 weeks after an incident in San Francisco when a Cruise vehicle pinned and dragged a pedestrian who had initially been hit by another car. Earlier this week, the company parted ways with nine executives, including its chief operating officer.
“We shared the difficult news that we are reducing our workforce, primarily in commercial operations and related corporate functions,” a Cruise spokesperson wrote in an email to Engadget. “These changes reflect our decision to focus on more deliberate commercialization plans with safety as our north star. We are supporting impacted Cruisers with strong severance and benefits packages and are grateful to the departing employees who played important roles in building Cruise and supporting our mission.”
A Cruise spokesperson pointed Engadget toward an internal email written by new President and CTO Mo Elshenawy, also published on the company blog. “We knew this day was coming, but that does not make it any less difficult—especially for those whose jobs are affected,” the message reads. The email says the layoffs primarily target non-engineering roles, including field workers, commercial operations and corporate staffing.
“We are simplifying and focusing our efforts to return with an exceptional service in one city to start with and focusing on the Bolt platform for this first step before we scale,” the email reads. “As a result, we are reducing our employee counts in operations and other areas.”
The news isn’t exactly a shock. Last month, Mary Barra, GM Chair and CEO, expressed plans for Cruise to be more “deliberate.” That included cutting expenses “by hundreds of millions of dollars” in 2024, a clear sign that the writing was already on the wall for considerable layoffs.
The tragic October 2 incident involved a Cruise vehicle pinning a pedestrian after another car’s hit-and-run. There weren’t any passengers in the autonomous vehicle (AV) at the time. “She was just screaming,” a cyclist bystander who tried to help told the SF Chronicle. The aftermath has been swift and decisive, with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) suspending its driverless permits over safety issues. There were even reports the company’s AVs were unable to effectively detect children, a situation that obviously requires extra precautions.
The roughly 900 employees losing their jobs at Cruise join a long list of tech layoffs in 2023.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cruise-lays-off-24-percent-of-its-workforce-164800680.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Cruise lays off 24 percent of its workforce
Intel launched its Intel Core Ultra processors for AI-powered PCs at its AI Everywhere event today. From a report: The big chip maker said these processors spearhead a new era in computing, offering unparalleled power efficiency, superior compute and graphics performance, and an unprecedented AI PC experience to mobile platforms and edge devices. Available immediately, these processors will be used in over 230 AI PCs coming from renowned partners like Acer, ASUS, Dell, Gigabyte, and more.
The Intel Core Ultra processors represent an architectural shift for Intel, marking its largest design change in 40 years. These processors harness the Intel 4 process technology and Foveros 3D advanced packaging, leveraging leading-edge processes for optimal performance and capabilities. The processors boast a performance-core (P-core) architecture enhancing instructions per cycle (IPC). Efficient-cores (E-cores) and low-power Efficient-cores (LP E-cores). They deliver up to 11% more compute power compared to competitors, ensuring superior CPU performance for ultrathin PCs.
Features of Intel Core Ultra
Intel Arc GPU: Featuring up to eight Xe-cores, this GPU incorporates AI-based Xe Super Sampling, offering double the graphics performance compared to prior generations. It includes support for modern graphics features like ray tracing, mesh shading, AV1 encode and decode, HDMI 2.1, and DisplayPort 2.1 20G.
AI Boost NPU: Intel’s latest NPU, Intel AI Boost, focuses on low-power, long-running AI tasks, augmenting AI processing on the CPU and GPU, offering 2.5x better power efficiency compared to its predecessors.
Advanced Performance Capabilities: With up to 16 cores, 22 threads, and Intel Thread Director for optimized workload scheduling, these processors boast a maximum turbo frequency of 5.1 GHz and support for up to 96 GB DDR5 memory capacity.
Cutting-edge Connectivity: Integrated Intel Wi-Fi 6E and support for discrete Intel Wi-Fi 7 deliver blazing wireless speeds, while Thunderbolt 4 ensures connectivity to multiple 4K monitors and fast storage with speeds of 40 Gbps.
Enhanced AI Performance: OpenVINO toolkits, ONNX, and ONNX Runtime offer streamlined workflow, automatic device detection, and enhanced AI performance.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Intel Core Ultra Processors Debut for AI-powered PCs
A cat owner throws a tinfoil ball a few feet in front of their expectant cat twice. The cat chases after the tinfoil ball and retrieves it back to the owner both times, carrying it in its mouth. Credit: Elizabeth Renner.
Cats have a well-deserved reputation for being independent-minded and aloof, preferring to interact with humans on their own quirky terms. So you’d never see a cat playing fetch like a dog, right? Wrong. That sort of play behavior is more common than you might think—one of our cats was an avid fetcher in her younger years, although she’s slowed down a bit with age. However, the evidence to date for specific fetching behaviors in cats is largely anecdotal.
That’s why a team of British scientists set out to study this unusual feline play behavior more extensively, reporting their findings in a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports. The researchers concluded that most cats who like to play fetch learned how to do so without any explicit training and that cats are generally in control when playing fetch with their humans. Specifically, cats will play fetch longer and retrieve the thrown object more times when they initiate the game rather than their owners. In other words, cats are still gonna be cats.
Many different animal species exhibit play behavior, according to the authors, and it’s most common in mammals and birds. When cats play, their behavior tends to resemble hunting behavior commonly seen in European wildcats and lynxes: rapid approach and retreat, leaping, chasing, pouncing, and stalking. Initially, as kittens, they engage in more social forms of play with their littermates like wrestling, and they tend to engage in more solitary play as adults—the opposite of dogs, who usually start playing with objects alone before transitioning to social play.
Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Yes, some cats like to play fetch. It’s science!
Google this week announced changes to the way it collects and stores user location data that might bring an end to geofence warrants.
The post Will Geofence Warrants Soon Be a Thing of the Past? Maybe, but Don’t Hold Your Breath appeared first on FOSS Force.
Source: FOSS Force – Will Geofence Warrants Soon Be a Thing of the Past? Maybe, but Don’t Hold Your Breath
So: Someone in your life is a dog lover. This is a perfect avenue for gift giving—if you’re thoughtful with your choices. It’s not always easy to find an item that your friend or family member doesn’t already have or isn’t weirdly picky about. With our help, however, you can nail the perfect present.
The one universal truth of puppydom is teeth: They clamp onto absolutely anything they can, including fingers. The Good Cuz/Bad Cuz line of rubber dog toys are perfect. Hold them between your fingers, making a fist, and your fingers are hidden, and your puppy has something to chew. A better puppy stocking stuffer there never was. They come in various sizes, so choose based on the size of the puppy.
Helping a newly adopted dog feel safe, secure and loved is one of the major challenges for people who take a rescue into their homes. One of the most endearing things I saw this year, just before I adopted, was a TikToker who gives their adopted pit bull spa days, literally showering their dog with attention and care. The time together has brought my rescue dog and myself closer, so a spa set with an explanation is a really thoughtful gift. Even if their dog doesn’t like showers, simply rubbing some coconut oil into their skin once in a while is soothing and beneficial.
Burt’s Bees Shampoo for Dogs: $7.48
Coconut oil for fur and skin: $8.99
Pet MD Dog Paw Balm – 3-in-1 Paw, Nose/Snout, & Elbow Moisturizer: $15.49
Dog Bathrobe Towel: $35.99 and up
Pet Grooming Gloves: $13.99
Instead of getting someone a new dog (which you should never do), give them a dog experience. For instance, you can have them visit Vermont’s Golden Dog Farm and loll around with “at least 10 Butternut Goldens.” Or consider a pilgrimage to Dog Mountain, also in Vermont, the retreat that wood carver and folk artist Stephen Huneck built as a tribute to canines. If a trip to Vermont isn’t in the offing, there’s this lovely custom pet memorial stone, which they can place in their garden.
Dog Mountain: free
Custom pet memorial stone: from $25.42
Some photographers specialize in sessions with older doggos. Gifting a photo session of your loved ones with their loved one is something they’ll likely treasure forever, but lets them set it up on their timetable and with their own parameters. Google “senior dog photography” and your city to find the right service provider. Or have a custom portrait created based on your favorite photo. (This would also be a thoughtful gift to anyone who’s lost their beloved pet.)
West & Willow pet portraits: from $68
Dogs aren’t the only ones who struggle as their humans go back to the office; their humans are stressed about it, too. Pair some activity toys with a pet camera to keep everyone’s anxiety at bay. We recommended the Eufy N140 last month with its 360-degree swivel, great resolution and ability to pitch treats to your doggo. WickedBone is an interactive smart toy designed to keep your dog stimulated while you control the fun from an app on your phone.
Eufy n140 pet camera: $209.99
WickedBone interactive toy: $43.99
No dog ever has enough Kongs or Chuckits, so more are always welcome. Consider boxing up 20 or more tennis balls for a floofy friend. The look of unadulterated joy they’ll have when they unbox and are overwhelmed with balls is worth it. For the ultimate holiday gift, get your friend a pair of PJs with their dog’s face on them—and then get their dog matching PJs with your friend’s face on them.
Kongs: price varies
Chuckits (pack of two): $5.30
Pet mini tennis balls (50): $29.99
Custom-printed PJs: $46.95
Custom-printed dog PJs: $25.95
All listed prices are subject to change.
Source: LifeHacker – The Best Gifts Any Dog Owner Will Love
With 2023 speeding to a close, you might be wondering how much time you spent gaming in what many have called the best year ever for the industry. (Was it, though?) It’s hard to remember the early months of the year when we enter the final stretch so, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony have devised a way for you to find…
Source: Kotaku – How To Get Your Year-End Wrap-Ups For Switch, PS5, And Xbox
This is the best time of the year to be a PC gamer. Why is that? Depending on your job, you may find yourself with time off from work to finally tackle that humongous backlog of games you’ve been meaning to play. Also, however, this is when digital distribution platforms go hard with seasonal sales. Epic Games (which is on a high after defeating
Source: Hot Hardware – Epic Holiday Sale Is Live With A Free Alan Wake Game Deal, 33% Off Coupon And Tons More
Apple’s 9th-gen iPad is back on sale via Amazon for $249, which is a 24 percent savings from the MSRP of $329. This isn’t the lowest price ever for the standard 10.2-inch tablet, but it’s darn close. This is the entry-level model with 64GB of storage, but that’s still plenty to load up the tablet with all kinds of streaming apps and games.
The 9th-gen iPad is widely considered to be the best Apple tablet for the budget-conscious, which is made more evident by this sale. It scored an 86 in our initial review and we praised it for the improved camera for video calls, the excellent battery life and, of course, that consumer-friendly price.
As a matter of fact, this tablet made our list of the best Apple iPads, though that’s something of a no-brainer. The screen is sharp and the 12MP camera is fine for most applications. This iPad also has a legitimate old-school headphone jack, which actually comes in quite handy when you can’t find that teensy-tiny Lightning adapter.
Of course, this tablet isn’t perfect, particularly when compared to some of its pricier siblings. The hardware is basically a step down from the Air and Pro in several ways. The design itself is a bit antiquated, recalling older models, and it’s powered by the same chipset found with the iPhone 11. That’s four iPhones ago, which is a lifetime in the world of tech.
If your eyes roll into the back of your head when you look at the price of the iPad Air or Pro, however, this is the tablet for you. We called it the “most wallet-friendly way into iPadOS” and that was before this steep discount.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-9th-gen-ipad-is-back-on-sale-for-249-160524744.html?src=rss
Source: Engadget – Apple’s 9th-gen iPad is back on sale for 9
If you’re doing your own renovations or just working on some projects around the house, you’ll find that scrap materials can quickly build up. While it might seem like the simplest thing is to just throw your scraps away, some scraps can’t fit in the garbage, some shouldn’t go in the garbage for safety reasons, and some scraps can be reused for something else. Here are some ways you can recycle your scraps safely, depending on the type of material it is.
Metal scraps can sometimes go in your municipal recycling if you have one. Check your local rules for what types of material are accepted. For metal scraps that can’t go to your curbside service, you can start a scrap bucket. Drop stripped screws, unused parts, cuttings of steel, copper, and other bare metals into a bucket; when it’s full, drop it off at a local scrap yard. If your bucket is full enough, you might even get some money for it. If you have usable parts that someone else might want or need, you can sometimes donate these to a local reuse center that will sort and resell your nuts, bolts, and unused screws at a discount to other enterprising DIYers. When I was teaching shop, I often used castoff parts to teach students how to use screw guns and other tools because the size of the part doesn’t matter as much as the technique in that situation. If you have a large amount of metal from redoing HVAC or another big job, you can look into professional disposal services in your area.
Wood scraps can pile up in your home shop quickly, and if you don’t plan to reuse them for something else, they can take up a lot of space. To recycle them, you can start by offering larger and more valuable scraps on local reselling groups through social media. You might even make a little pocket change this way and you’ll know that you’re fueling your local DIY community. If you would rather have your scraps gone ASAP, you can donate usable scrap to reuse centers. For larger amounts of scrap, some of these facilities will even offer pickup so you don’t have to make a trip. For scraps that aren’t particularly useful, you can also recycle them as mulch. Some municipalities have community mulching facilities, but if not, you can likely find a private company happy to take your distressed wood scraps for a small fee. Smaller wood scraps that aren’t treated can be added to compost and will eventually break down just like any other organic material would.
If you’re doing an upholstery project or working on some other home decor items, you might end up with extra fabric you don’t need. Recycling fabric scraps is as easy as donating old clothing in most cases. You can drop them off at most charities that take clothing donations and anything that isn’t sold will be passed on to a textile recycling plant. You can also offer fabric scraps on local free groups—some even have special pages just for crafting—and you’ll often get to meet a fellow crafter in the process.
Recycling tile can be tricky but there are a few retailers that run tile take-back programs where you can have your extra scrap tiles recycled. For other options, some reuse centers will take unused tiles to resell to other DIY home renovators, and you can always offer it on local reselling groups to see if you can find any takers. You can also reach out to local crafting and community programs to see if anyone would like extra material for their projects. Since tile often can’t be thrown away in the regular trash due to its weight, you might need to pay to have it taken away if you can’t find a way to recycle or reuse it.
You might have caught on by now that almost any extra material can be recycled or reused by someone, if given the chance. If you have leftover or scrap materials, you can often find a home for them outside of a landfill and at no cost to you. Finding the local materials groups near you, establishing a relationship with local community groups, and making a social media post to offer your scraps can help you recycle your scraps for free or cheap.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Recycle Every Type of Material Left Over From Your DIY Projects
The Tianyi-33 satellite, launched by China, features a unique dual-kernel architecture with a real-time Linux kernel written in Rust.
The post China Launches Satellite With Real-Time Linux Kernel Subsystem Written in Rust appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – China Launches Satellite With Real-Time Linux Kernel Subsystem Written in Rust
The end is nigh, and Good Omens is preparing for it again. Having evolved from a limited series exploring the story of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s beloved novel into its own magical continuation of ideas from the pair left unpublished, now Good Omens is ready to call time on Amazon… and on the Apocalypse.
Source: Gizmodo – Good Omens Will Return For a Third and Final Season
Pope Francis has called for a legally binding international treaty to regulate AI, saying algorithms must not be allowed to replace human values and warning of a “technological dictatorship” threatening human existence. From a report: The pope made his call on Thursday in a message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Peace, which is celebrated on Jan. 1. The title of the message, which is traditionally sent to world leaders and heads of institutions such as the United Nations, is “Artificial Intelligence and Peace.”
[…] “The global scale of artificial intelligence makes it clear that, alongside the responsibility of sovereign states to regulate its use internally, international organizations can play a decisive role in reaching multilateral agreements and coordinating their application and enforcement,” Francis wrote in the message. “I urge the global community of nations to work together in order to adopt a binding international treaty that regulates the development and use of artificial intelligence in its many forms,” the pope said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Pope Francis Calls for Binding Global Treaty To Regulate AI
Instagram is going to be giving creators on the platform a helping hand when it comes to managing their communities, alongside assistance to help them keep their account in good standing. Over the coming weeks creators will get access to a suite of tools that include improved spam detection and in-app notifications of any content that may
Source: Hot Hardware – Instagram Rolls Out Much-Needed Tools To Bury Spammers In Meta’s Backyard
Huawei has revealed a different take on the open-air earbud by adding some high fashion, professional flare along with flagship features to it. Called the FreeClip, Huawei utilizes a unique “C-bridge” design that allows the earpiece to stay secured in (but not into your ear canal) and around your ear. If you don’t mind wearing something that
Source: Hot Hardware – Huawei Unveils Unique Wireless Earbuds That Don’t Actually Go Inside Your Ear Canal
The archived hour-long chat is a must-watch for any long-time Doom fan.
While Doom can sometimes feel like an overnight smash success, the seminal first-person shooter was far from the first game created by id co-founders John Carmack and John Romero. Now, in a rare joint interview that was livestreamed during last weekend’s 30th-anniversary celebration, the pair waxed philosophical about how Doom struck a perfect balance between technology and simplicity that they hadn’t been able to capture previously and have struggled to recapture since.
Carmack said that Doom-precursor Wolfenstein 3D, for instance, “was done under these extreme, extraordinary design constraints” because of the technology available at the time. “There just wasn’t that much we could do.”
Wolfenstein 3D‘s grid-based mapping led to a lot of boring rectangular rooms connected by long corridors. (credit: Steam)
One of the biggest constraints in Wolfenstein 3D was a grid-based mapping system that forced walls to be at 90-degree angles, leading to a lot of large, rectangular rooms connected by long corridors. “Making the levels for the original Wolfenstein had to be the most boring level design job ever because it was so simple,” Romero said. “Even [2D platformer Commander Keen] was more rewarding to make levels for.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Doom’s creators reminisce about “as close to a perfect game as anything we made”
The kernel’s stable-update process is intended to produce kernels that are,
well, stable; when that promise is lived up to, users can update to newer
stable updates without fear. By any account, a bug that corrupts data on
ext4 filesystems constitutes a failure to hold to that promise. As is so
often the case, this problem is the result of a chain of failures in a
system that works well most of the time.
Source: LWN.net – [$] Ext4 data corruption hits the stable kernels